Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Since defective climate science projections produced by federal agencies still stand uncorrected, the EPA continues to use those defective climate science projections to create a cascade of defective recommendations.
New EPA document tells communities to brace for climate change impacts
By Juliet Eilperin and
Brady Dennis
April 27 at 4:41 PMThe Environmental Protection Agency published a 150-page document this past week with a straightforward message for coping with the fallout from natural disasters across the country: Start planning for the fact that climate change is going to make these catastrophes worse.
The language, included in guidance on how to address the debris left in the wake of floods, hurricanes and wildfires, is at odds with the rhetoric of the EPA’s own leader, Andrew Wheeler. Just last month, Wheeler said in an interview with CBS that “most of the threats from climate change are 50 to 75 years out.”
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The divergence between Wheeler and his own agency offers the latest example of the often contradictory way that federal climate policy has evolved under President Trump. As the White House has sought to minimize or ignore climate science, government experts have continued to sound the alarm.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/new-epa-document-tells-communities-to-brace-for-climate-change-impacts/2019/04/27/09cf8df6-6836-11e9-82ba-fcfeff232e8f_story.html
From the new EPA document;
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Cleaning up this debris can be time-consuming and costly, extending the recovery from the disaster. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Hurricane Katrina, one of the most catastrophic natural disasters in U.S. history, resulted in more than 99 million cubic yards of debris, totaling greater than $3.7 billion in debris removal costs alone (https://www.fema.gov/news-release/2006/08/22/numbers-one-year-later). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that from 1980-2017, the U.S. has experienced 219 natural disasters that resulted in at least $1 billion in damages per event, costing the U.S. more than $1.5 trillion. Ten of these disasters occurred in 2015; fifteen of these disasters occurred in 2016. In 2017, sixteen of these disasters occurred, resulting in the most expensive year on record for disasters, with $306.2 billion in cumulative damages. This total replaces the previous annual record cost of $214.8 billion (adjusted for inflation), which was established in 2005 due to the impacts of Hurricanes Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma. (NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters (2018): https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/billions/.) According to the 2014 National Climate Assessment, which is a detailed report on climate change impacts on the U.S., climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of some natural disasters (http://s3.amazonaws.com/nca2014/low/NCA3_Climate_Change_Impacts_in_the_United%20States_LowRes.pdf?download=1). The amount of debris generated by natural disasters, and the costs to manage it, will likely increase as a result.
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Communities at risk of significant damage from a natural disaster.
- Communities at increased risk from natural disasters due to climate change.
- Communities currently without an existing or comprehensive debris management plan.
- Communities with emergency response plans that overlook disaster debris cleanup or
consider only a limited number of debris management options.- Communities in the beginning stages of the debris management planning process.
- Communities with existing debris management plans that have not been updated with
new information, such as reductions in existing disposal capacity or innovative reuse or recycling opportunities.…
Planners should focus on preparing for those disasters that are likely to happen in their communities. However, planners should not rely solely on historical information to determine the risks to their communities because the past is not a reliable predictor of future conditions under a changing climate. Recorded changes in temperature, precipitation, and wind patterns, for example, are causing extreme weather events that are creating new risks to communities and sites. More frequent and intense storms, flooding, storm surges, droughts, and wildfires— and combinations of events—may generate larger amounts of debris. Planners should also consider potential new or exacerbated risks to their communities after a disaster occurs. For example, heavy rainfall in an area devastated by wildfires can increase the possibility of massive mudslides due to destroyed vegetation on slopes. Examples of the types of debris that may be generated from natural disasters include vegetative debris (e.g., brush and trees), animal carcasses, construction and demolition (C&D) debris, orphaned tanks (i.e., abandoned tanks with no known or financially viable owner), marine or waterway debris, sediment, vehicles, white goods (i.e., household appliances, such as stoves, refrigerators, washers/dryers, air conditioner units), and electronics waste (e.g., computer equipment, cell phones).
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FLOODS occur when excess water submerges land, such as from prolonged heavy rains or changes in the environment (e.g., land development) around streams, rivers, and coastal areas that reduce the ability of the ground to absorb water. Floods can occur in coastal and inland areas, making them the most common natural disaster in the U.S. Climate change may intensify flooding across the U.S., even in areas where total precipitation is projected to decline (http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/sectors/water). The FEMA Flood Map Service Center provides tools to understand an area’s flood risk (https://msc.fema.gov/portal/). FEMA is also working with federal, state, local, and tribal partners to identify flood risk and help reduce that risk using Risk Mapping, Assessment and Planning (Risk MAP) (https://www.fema.gov/risk-mapping-assessment-and-planning-risk-map). Additionally, NOAA’s Office of Water Prediction collaboratively researches, develops, and delivers state-of-the-science national hydrologic analyses, forecast information, data, decision-support services, and guidance to support and inform essential emergency services and water management decisions (http://water.noaa.gov/ and http://water.weather.gov/ahps/).
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HURRICANES are severe tropical storms that form in the ocean and can make landfall along coastal communities in the U.S., bringing with them winds of at least 74 miles per hour, heavy rains, and large waves that can damage trees, buildings, and infrastructure. Hurricane-associated storm intensity, frequency, and duration have substantially increased since the 1980s and are projected to continue increasing as the climate warms (http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report /our-changing-climate/changes-hurricanes). NOAA maintains the National Hurricane Center (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/) and Central Pacific Hurricane Center (http://www.prh.noaa.gov/cphc/) to provide forecasts and warnings for tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Eastern and Central Pacific Ocean, including some of the resulting hazards, such as storm surge.
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WINTER STORMS are events that include large amounts of snow, sleet, or freezing rain. Areas with below-freezing temperatures are at risk of winter storms. Since the 1950s, winter storms have become more frequent and intense and have shifted northward over the U.S. (http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/our-changing-climate/changes-storms).
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Read more: https://www.epa.gov/homeland-security-waste/guidance-about-planning-natural-disaster-debris
I’m not sure my quotes fully capture how riddled with climate references this useless EPA document is – well worth a read if you have a strong stomach.
It’s not anthropogenic. It’s not catastrophic. Nature’s choice, perhaps humane. The prophecy is still heard by green ears, hearts, and minds.
All set to brace for another 12 year Atlantic hurricane drought.
So they are promoting capitalism…..
..more capitalism so we have more money…to pay for the clean up of more natural disasters
Best part of all…every year…we get to start a new “10 years til it’s over”
..how deep is that swamp?
So who is running the EPA ?
Sounds like the employees are defying their boss, and getting away with
it. But firing Public servants can be difficult, and they know it.
MJE VK5ELL
The Swamp is deep and treacherous…
Since our major pollution problems of the past were essentially solved, the EPA had to have a new crisis to fight. That, and the fact that no one noticed the green NGOs taking over academia and CliSci, have led to socialists and rent-seekers populating our governmental agencies.
I agree, Dave. The institution is inflated and archaic. Having fulfilled their original goals, they must keep creating an increasingly unreachable standard of environmental anthropogenic sterility in order to sustain the bloated institution.
No, it’s all of the above PSA infomercials to cover themselves.
“But firing Public servants can be difficult, and they know it.”
I dunno….Scott Pruitt was fired/removed pretty quick smart.
“I dunno….Scott Pruitt was fired/removed pretty quick smart.”
He didn’t get appointed via the civil service system. He was a “political” appointee.
Why fire them?
Trump should issue an Executive Order mandating that all EPA employees, including Directors, Supervisors and Managers, must spend two (2) years of “field work” along the US-Mexican Border accessing what must be done to protect the fragile “border environment” within 100 feet of the US side of the newly constructed wall.
Public servants are not immune to acts of insubordination or sexual predation.
A second problem is the fact that if anyone in management tries to stop the publication of the garbage science they will be accused of muzzling scientists. This happened to Stephen Harper in Canada just before our last election. It dominated our news for weeks when the government decided to close down a research facility and program in Western Ontario. Harper wanted to cut costs across departments. The cut program only required a few $100,000, but they also wanted a new research centre worth millions. A good time to cut – but one pays a political price when taking on the swamp (muskeg in Canada). Bureaucracy never dies.
5-1/2 MORE years of the Trump Admin. and we’ll weed out all the Deep State proselytizing eco-Socialists.
The only way is to close all these agencies altogether.
Never a truer word said. You cannot make a broken egg whole again not a rotten apple sweet. The leftist corruption and filth must squelch out of carpets as you walk those blighted corridors.
There are no documented negative changes to any climate metric. Statistical games with imperfect data are CliSci hallmarks. Additionally, the Deep State is manifest at the EPA and other Federal agencies.
Ongoing probes will document FBI, DOJ and other intelligence agencies’ attempted coup.
Interesting that 12 years went by without a major hurricane making landfall in the US. Obviously an oversight on the part of the EPA.
Pops, “without making landfall in the U.S.” ? Pops, it’s about the whole planet, nto just the U.S. Hurricanes/Typhoons getting more powerful.
and worldwide cyclonic energy is at a 30 year low
Sorry, “the whole planet” is not the responsibility of the US EPA.
MikeH: “12 years went by without a major hurricane making landfall in the U.S.” Now there’s some data screaming for a rollicking good adjustment. If the lads at NOAA can locate a station malfunction somewhere, some very low pressure ship bucket reading maybe, then fill-in, and voila! The hurricane pause never was! Might seem improbable to adjust data like that, but… hey, maybe they can disappear some of those 1930’s hurricanes?
What a wacky phrase: “Brace for climate impacts” but that is their noble cause, to warn the little people to get ready for the wrath of Gaia, we been bad burning fossil fuels, and Mother Nature is coming for revenge, the EPA is a bunch of career bureaucrats, clucks.
Whatever happened to nuclear winter?
Next year!
Nothing.
More evidence (as if we needed any) that the out-of-control, power-mad EPA needs to be abolished.
Hardly surprising. Trump has permitted the grossly exaggerated National Climate Assessment to stand, without challenge.
Why would you expect the bureaucracies and those who feed off them to preach anything different?
I think Trump thought pulling out of Paris was all he had to do on the subject of climate. Sadly, he appointed an alarmist at NOAA and has done nothing to weed out the plethora of bureaucrats all through his administration. He needs to completely eliminate some departments or this kind of nonsense will continue to show up off and on.
This is the problem with big government – there are so many civil servants that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. There are too many civil servants who have to justify their jobs by doing things that are of little or no real value to the public.
Michael: I disagree. There are so many civil servants, but the left hand knows that the right hand is doing nothing, is not being fired, and is trying to get disability. And the left hand wants its slice of the pie. They have interns to actually write reports and stuff. The interns are young and enthusiastic, and believe like activists that they can change the world. The left hand and right hand are old hands, past all that “believe” crap, just showing up (or not) until pension time.
We’re deep into H.L. Mencken Land, as in: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
The increased cost of disasters over time is mainly inflation. A 1949 tornado destroying fifteen houses valued at $12,000 apiece, caused 15 x 12 = $180,000 in damage. Fifteen replacement houses destroyed by a tornado in 2019 would likely be valued at $180,000 apiece. Storm damage is 15 x 180 = $2,700,000. Wow! It looks like disasters are getting costlier, eh? In practice, the 2019 houses are probably better made, with better plumbing, snazzier appliances, costlier flooring materials, and so on, so the dollar multiplier effect might be even larger. Yikes!
However, due to better communications, stronger cellars, faster, more reliable cars & rescue vehicles, etc. and the fact that fewer people live in each house nowadays, it’s likely that the death toll from those obliterated houses is smaller than 70 years ago. Awww. . . Hobgoblin slayers are disappointed.
Besides that, we don’t have apples-to-apples data on storm frequency or severity because we’re not using the same instruments to measure them.. What data we have show few trends. Awww. . . Chicken Licken is going to have a hairy canary if people stop running scared.
Even worse than that, a tornado 100 years ago could demolish 15 homes, and the exact same storm track today could take out 1,500 homes, so just inflating the cost doesn’t adjust for the increased damage, and that IMHO, is why the most expensive storms occurred in the last xx years, it’s more smoke and mirrors and hand waving.
EPA ……..The Excremental Propaganda Agency
I’m sorry, but I am still waiting for President Trump to go on the offense against the climate alarmist narrative. He has been in office for just over 27 months now, and that is ample to time to launch a campaign against it. Where is that panel that is supposed to headed by Dr. William Happer? Have they convened and started their work yet?
I’ll say this one more time: It cannot be ruled out that a Democrat will win the White House in November of next year. If the Trump administration does nothing between now and then to discredit the alarmist narrative and he loses to a Dem, the incoming Democratic administration can thank their lucky stars that they still have the climate scare to use as a political and ideological environmental tool against the U.S. economy and the American people. Trump will have done nothing to prevent it.
Yes, I understand that the Earth might start cooling in the years ahead. Will it be enough to put an end to this if it does? I don’t know. The UN, numerous govts of the world, science, academia and the mainstream media are all heavily invested in this scare, and money has a sizable part in it. There is a lot of incentive and invested interests in it to keep it going even in the face of a cooling Earth (IMHO). The art of propagandizing is well established as we have been seeing for years now. The truth, whatever it is, can be kept under wraps (or explained away) for quite a while when it threatens the financial, political and activist interests in this scare.
That the scare has been going on for this long says a lot about how hard it will be to dislodge it and see it drift off into the sunset of bad science.
Agree…. but face it, CC is low priority for the Conservative politicians and the people of all parties. Often polled (for what that’s worth) at or near the bottom. I like that the Dems have added it to their suicide platform list.
Markl: I understand that the CC scare is low on the priority list of Conservatives/Republicans and in the polls. What concerns me is if the Democratic politicians get control of the White House and Congress next year. The CC scare appears to be much higher on THEIR priority list, and that will be a problem if they win next year. They are more deeply beholden to the environmental movement than Republicans, and the CAGW hypothesis is treated as sacred infallible doctrine among environmentalists.
Agreed.
What’s the point of improving the situation (e.g., by reining in regulation) if the improvement has a longevity of only a couple of years?
The cancer remains in place, waiting for the inevitable opportunity.
It’s more particular than just American people, but American working class people in particular. There are climate hoax winners. That’s why they’ve done so much to promulgate this scam. They were supposed to get/ or are guaranteed 10% returns. If you have to work for a living, you’re probably going to lose like people who have to work for a living elsewhere already have. If you don’t really have to work for a living, and there’s a really strong correlation between that and paying for degrees and being handed these “unchallengeable credentials,” then there’s a really good chance that you’re profiting off of ruining working America. Look at what’s being spewed on college campuses these days, even school campuses, and then look at how much public and private money is shoveled into it every year. Look at all of the heaps of non-dischargeable student debt that is being accrued by wannabes who also don’t want to really have to work for a living, but who don’t have the elite parents. This largely explains the education and class realignment of both political parties these days.
Jim it’s ridiculous that they lowered the standards for admission, quintupled enrollment, created a nightmare of silly do nothing faculties with carloads of empty-headed néomarxiste professors turning out anti-American witless graduates. That costs the country more than the 1 trillion in natural disaster clean-up for sure.
STEM students number about 5% of the student population and they are now working on lowering standards there because they are unhappy wirh low diversity participation rates and the lack of ability to brainwash them because of the factual nature of the curriculum.
You could fire 80% or more of the dross in the teaching staff and have a program to train the unfortunate, bewildered students who don’t belong in a university to become plumbers, carpenters and the like. There is a shortage of good bricklayers. Maybe train them to clean up after floods and hurricanes. I think soon we will have to just build new practical high standard, smaller universities and just let Harvard and all the others go ti their doom. They are too “big” to fix.
The US needs to shut down most of the major universities. Online education enhanced with AI can replace them and can do it without the political indoctrination. While this might upset a lot of parents looking to send their kids away, it could reduce the political problems now facing this country.
That’s for sure, it has defined the world’s concept of environmentalism for decades, to the point that folks tend to ignore the real issues of the environment, like throwing trash out their car windows. We need to focus on things we can actually change, like it was at the start of the environmental awareness era.
I got to know quite a few EPA folks during my career related to Clean Air Act compliance. They were virtually all very liberal and anti-business. Most had previous experience with state air quality regulators or enviro NGO’s. I would bet that anyone who might apply that had a pro-business background would be screened out. The current administration may have tried to close the chicken coop door, but the foxes are still inside.
Is a report of this type actually part of EPA’s remit?
I would have thought that FEMA would own this turf.
I wonder if the EPA inspector General – if there is one – is doing his job of auditing the functions of the agency. Has anyone asked for his reports in this area?
I think I recall learning that people’s party propaganda in Germany was at its peak just before the allies won the war. A last-ditch effort to rally the followers.
You could also mention Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, known as Baghdad Bob.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Saeed_al-Sahhaf#Announcements
“planners should not rely solely on historical information to determine the risks to their communities because the past is not a reliable predictor of future conditions under a changing climate” In other words…. forget reality and embrace fantasy.
In other words, ignore the fact that everything that is happening now has happened before.
Saying weather will get worse based on any particular issue is an opinion. When the data shows that this opinion is incorrect, then we have nothing but a fabrication based on nothing. By spreading these baseless fabrications, the EPA is harming their reputation.
Funny where Gang Green manifests itself.
The bureaus have lead in this attack on the productive, C.A.G.W is a creation orchestrated by government bureaus.
Of course the EPA will still be pushing the “narrative”, this is government.
The less useful,the more useless you are, the higher your pay and promotion.
The only sane way to resolve this cluster of parasitism will be to abolish the department, as you can not ,in all practicality,fire these Employees.
I can’t figure out how today’s weather differs from the 1960’s. If anyone can (who also lived during that epoch), please fill me in and provide reference material.
Also, what are the physics of this instant heating that purportedly will bring climageddon in a decade or so? I don’t seem to be familiar with that aspect of the “settled science”.
Pop, climate change is real but the only palpable evidence is the “Great Greening” and bumper crops and the grey folk are mum about that because it overwhelms the benefit side of the balance.
Moreover, by the lights of the grey folk we whitemen are the munificent benefactors of this great gift to the biosphere don’t you know! And how about the astonishing decline in disease rates for which there appears no explanation except perhaps for lung cancer which is believed to be a result of reduction in tobacco smokers. Perhaps higher CO2 directly and the improved quality of food could be the reason? The Great Healthing has occurred in tandem with the Great Greening – how about astudy for that?
Learn something, SNIP no personal insults – MOD: https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
The only thing that bogus, bastardized Hockey Stick chart is evidence of is fraud.
You are another person who has been duped by the lying Hockey Stick charts. One of these days you are probably going to be angry when you find out these “reputable” climate scientists have lied to you.
Got any other “evidence” of CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming) being real?
My guess is you don’t because the bogus Hockey Stick charts are the only “evidence” our “reputable” climate science betters have to offer.
Hockey Stick charts are computer models. They don’t reflect the real world, they reflect an effort on behalf of Climategate Charlatans to dishonestly make it look like the Earth’s weather is getting hotter and hotter and is now at unprecedented levels. Yet, it can easily be determined that the 1930s were just as warm as today. Only the bogus Hockey Stick says differently. That’s why it was created. CAGW requires unprecedented warmth but there is no unprecedented warmth because we have been this warm as recently as the 1930’s. No CO2 required back then and no CO2 required today since it is the same level of warmth today as then, when CO2 was not a factor.
Still no evidence of CAGW. Nice try though. But you can see it’s not going to get much traction here at WUWT..
To get the puck off the ice, you need to mash the stick into the ice just before contact, the stick is already bent backwards and ready to spring forward.
Hold tight, don’t let it spin in your hands.
The goalies will be running for cover 🙂
“planners should not rely solely on historical information to determine the risks to their communities because the past is not a reliable predictor of future conditions under a changing climate. ”
This sentence contains a strange lack of logic that drives the CC industry and Deep State climate misinformation machine. If climate is the historical average of weather events we need to use the history of those events to chart any change. To state that we shouldn’t use that history but rely on models that try to reproduce that history in order to guess at a possible future seems to me to be more than convoluted logic.
I think you hit the nail on the head with that one. Convoluted logic indeed.
I’m not going to read through 150 pages of a report indicative that someone got paid by the word for it.
I want to know 1 thing though: exactly when is this “past” that planners should not rely upon…cuz I have a sneaky suspicion its around 1958. 😀
Since when did EPA became planetary weather control agency ???
Does the EPA now stand for, Early Panic Agency? Maybe there is a case to be brought against the EPA for promoting false alarms?
Here is an idea they may like to consider.
Because of the expected catastrophic flooding expected sometime in the distant future, perhaps the EPA should build a big boat, one that is capable of carrying all of the EPA family and every animal times 2 (or maybe times 62 as gender fluidity makes deciding, who’s what, difficult, these days) Maybe they can ask that nice organisation called NOAA to help in the design, and crewing of the vessel? It will need some strong oarsmen as fossil fuel will never be allowed on board…
Re. Pop Pisa , April 27.
Some years ago there was a book called “The War that Germany Won.””.
It was the Ministry of Propaganda, and it was so effective that right up to the
Battle for Berlin, the average German was convinced that somehow Hitler
would at the last minute produce another rabbit out of has hat..
The Green propaganda is very good, keep the message simple and keep on
repeating it.
MJR VK5ELL
I’m braced-
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
I am “so over” a patient response of reason to acquaintances and friends when they mindlessly parrot media/education gloom and doom about the “holocaust of the day” of hurricanes or tornadoes or heat waves or floods or polar vortexes or whatever. Anymore, my best response is to ask what (the hell, sometimes) they think are talking about when, for instance, we are in the midst of a hurricane drought. It makes them uncomfortable to be held responsible for their part in the narrative, but they’ve been at it so long they think that is only their prerogative.
Boy do we need more teeth in the Data Quality Act.
They are better at mining engineering in the San Juans. /sarc
Government shutdown 2018 EPA staffers learned nobody called for them – and all went well.
https://www.epa.gov/lapse
So proactive they have to present themselves indispensable.
Who wants to blame them?
Americans need the equivalent of the Australian Razor Gang of the early 1980’s to go through the place. Committee formed 1980 and reported 1981 on 350 Federal government functions that it believed could be eliminated, reduced, or transferred to other levels of government. Saved $500 million back then.
I wonder if radicals at the EPA ever give a thought to the impact these dire pronouncements have on people’s mental health. If, as the EPA intends, people believe all this gloom and doom, they can and do become despondent and even angry. I tried recently to tell a friend that maybe things aren’t as bad as he thinks they are. I was treated to a diatribe of end of the world gibberish, and was accused of being condescending. He had no intention of listening to anything I said. To him, the world is trash, it is hopeless, and he had no intention of debating the issue.
It may be cynical of me, but I think this is exactly the effect EPA intends.
Extreme
Progressive
A…
In deference to the dignity of the board, I’ll leave the ‘A’ word up to individual preference.
Trump will NEED another four years to sort this out …. if he’s interested.